I can see a lot of blue sky, but also some streaks of clouds as I look outside my window. Both forecasters (BBC and Met Office) predict a start of full sunshine for a couple of hours, and then sunny spells for the rest of daylight hours. In the latest revision to the forecast the Met Office says a couple of hours, 11am and midday, will not feature any sun. The BBC say there will be no break apart from the sun popping behind the occasional cloud for some minutes. For all that sunshine it will be quite cold with a max of just 9° C. Tomorrow sees a return to grey skies and rain - light rain according to The BBC, and some hours of heavy rain according to The Met Office. The temperature will be a bit higher than today 12° C.

  Yesterday was a reasonably productive day - maybe only by comparison to most days this month. One thing I completely failed to do was my intended fasting. I felt ridiculously hungry yesterday morning, and even after a single large bowl of instant noodles I still felt hungry for a lot of the day.

  It did occur to me that the hungry and empty feeling I was getting from my guts was actually some sort of other feeling I was misinterpreting, but nothing occurred to support that idea (like having to rush to the toilet). I still had a lot of Indian takeaway to eat, but for lunchtime I just had a pile of rice crackers with cheese. I doubt it helped much, but at least I could put the blame on the Indian food I had eaten when my blood glucose was rather higher than desirable, but more about that later.
  Driven by strong curiosity, one of the first things I did yesterday was to power up the very posh, 32" curved screen PC monitor. It powered up OK, but once the screen lit it confirmed that the stain like appearance down the middle was because the screen had cracked. There is no chance of a cheap repair at all for this fault - the actual LCD screen counts for about 90% of the price. I now have to try and dispose of it. One likely thing is to put it back where it was found in an after dark secret mission !

  A more useful job yesterday was to hand wash a couple of t-shirts, and some underwear. It was about half the backlog that had built up, but that didn't include a couple of t-shirts that I only wore for a couple of hours, and should be fresh enough for use on things like shopping, although that is possibly no shopping to be done today. I believe both Tesco and Aldi will stay closed today. On the other hand a few shops may open.

  Trying the screen and doing the laundry, were the only two real tangible things I did yesterday, but I did a lot of small things that all added up to passing a lot of time. One such silly little thing....or maybe not so silly, was checking back through my records of body temperature measurements. I no longer do it religiously, almost every hour, as I did during the peak Covid period, but I try and get in at least 3 or 4 measurements a day.

  I was wondering if there was definite evidence in my temperature readings of what I thought was a some sort of bug I have had recently, and it seemed there was. Last Friday (the 22nd Dec) my temperature hit 37.3° C at about 7pm. By normal reckoning that is "normal", but it seems not for me. It is a good 1° C higher than any other measurement taken during this year. I can't quite remember if it happened the night before, or after, I had a very sweaty time in bed. It looks like I definitely had a fever.

  For the last few days, plus this morning, it does feel like I am feeling better. It is not clear cut though. Although most bits do not ache almost continuously like they did a week ago, some bits still seem to easily provoked to ache. For apparently no reason at all, my right elbow was quite painful for a short time, but seems fine half an hour later. The real test will come when I try to go on a short walk - maybe a longer walk if it feels good.

  One nefarious little thing yesterday was finding the source for, and downloading the complete Star Trek: The New Generation series - all 7 series ! The silly thing is that I am not sure I want to watch more than a few of the best episodes - which will be difficult to identify without actually watching them. I guess I did it more for completeness to go with my other Star Trek recordings - many back from VHS days. Rather than clog up my main PC I used the iMac in the dining room.

  When dinner time arrived, at about 6am, I had a choice of ingredients. I had a container of a Tandoori Mixed Grill, a container of mixed vegetable curry, and two nan breads. I bolstered up the rather thin mixed vegetable curry with half of one nan bread, and then I ate the mixed grill. I still have a nan bread to use up. I may do my usual trick of using as a sort of pizza base, and I guess I should use it up today.

  To my great surprise, the Legend channel was sticking to it's normal schedule while all the other channels were crammed with Xmas crap. I was able to watch two Star Treks. One was of the original series, and the other was Deep Space Nine. Fortunately the latter was one of the not-that-bad episodes. It finished at 7pm, and I was almost feeling ready for bed when it finished. I managed to waste at least the next hour, and possibly a bit more before going to bed.

  When I think about it, apart from it feeling "early", I have no idea when I went to bed, and finally turned the light out. I am fairly sure I fell asleep quite quickly. With the outside temperature very mild it was easy to keep my bedroom warm enough with the heater on low so I could discard the duvet. In fact I think I might have had the heater off for a few hours. By 3 or 4am it had cooled down enough that I put the heater on full until I got up.

  I dreamed a lot last night, but as usual, the memories of those dreams have faded away. One bit of dream was set on the banks of The River Thames. I was with someone, possibly my old friend Aleemah, and we were talking to a lighthouse keeper. I was lamenting that modern technology meant that hardly any boats used short wave communication, and I could hear nothing on the short wave radio I had with me. I gave it to my companion saying "maybe you can get more joy from this radio than I do".

  One other sliver of dream contained more drama. I was walking through some moderately narrow streets of London when I spotted a bus coming around the corner that was too tight for it, and it crushed a keep left sign. Saying it was a bus is simplifying the description too much. For one thing it was green instead of red, and it had oversized wheels on it. The front entrance had been plated over, and the driver had hardly any view of his left hand side. It almost had a military look to it. The dream was evidently a two minute filler because all I have described took no more than 2 minutes, and probably less before moving on to something else.

  This morning my blood glucose readings were far too high - except for one of the readings. I think the Contour meter got the first first fresh blood, and it said a reasonable-ish 8.7mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a pretty awful 10.1mmol/l - just over the red line. The other two read the same 9.9mmol/l, and with two agreeing I guess that was the real reading. That is just under the red line (by the skin of it's teeth), and not too dangerous (although I have a feeling one of my old boils on my inner thigh may be coming active again).

  This morning I am fasting. I meant to do it yesterday, but I felt mysteriously starving. This morning I am missing breakfast, but I don't feel any imperative to not fast. I shall try and fast through lunch as well, but I may have something known not to increase my blood glucose readings. My dinner will be stewed lamb and leek. Leek is a potential source of sugar, but I need some vegetable to go with the lamb, and the leek in the fridge can't last much longer. It gives me little choice.

  As I mentioned further up the page, I want to go for at least a short walk today, to see how I feel. In particular I want to know if the cold air is going to turn my breathing wheezy, or if the scar tissue on my chest is going to flare up. I can accept some slight ache as a result of the cold air, but if it is bad I will have to go back to considering some medical advice. They won't do anything for pain, but there is a chance it could still be a heart problem that should be fixed. Spending a fortnight in a hospital bed in January won't be so bad, and could even be enjoyable, but I didn't want to spend time in hospital over Xmas - heaven knows what terrible things happen there over that period - some may even expect you to enjoy it !!!